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By Marilyn - 29 Sep 2011

“And whatever city you enter, and they receive you, eat what is set
before you;”

With what we believe as vegetarians and vegans? If we go in peace,
to a home, and they prepare a feast of animal flesh, how can we be
Christ-like and refuse it?

I and my family, especially my son, have been wrestling with this for
almost 13 years! At 5 years old, he chose, and was wholeheartedly
convicted to not eating dead animals. We are to the point that we no
longer eat cheese with rennet or anything with gelatin, and read labels, but
we have had many, many discussions over the years about how to maintain our
convictions in a peace-like manner, when meat and food with dead animal
by-products are “lovingly” made for and served to us.

If we could talk with the hosts ahead of time, we would certainly do
that. It is when we would go out, in Christ’s ministry, and are
invited and accepted into a stranger’s home, that we are torn. I have
heard that the Buddhist Monks, even though they are vegetarian, will eat
meat, in small quantities, when they are guests in someone else’s home.
I think we would be shaking a lot of dust from our shoes, if we were to
abide by your recommendation:

“If we look and act the same way as the rest of the world, by doing what
they do, participating in their sinful acts, eating the foods of suffering
and death, and speaking like them, we will be like them, and not of God's
kingdom.”

The difficult part is that I tend to believe your interpretation, but I
question if it is Christ-like. I just don’t know.